Barry Idmess Darkroom Equipment

Darkroom Twin

Without a doubt, the easiest subject for me to express my feelings about and to write about is this one: The Love For The Job Of Making Portraits!

First, let me just say that I believe that for every occupation, profession or career path there is a personality that is perfectly suited to it. It is my prayer for humankind that everyone should find that occupation that perfectly suits them. I believe that if everyone had the job they loved to do that the world would be a better and much more peaceful place. And really, I thank God that there are people who are happy to do the things I just couldn't be happy doing! For instance, I couldn't be an accountant, or a physical therapist. I actually thought at one time I would love to do physical therapy, but I quickly discovered that I couldn't be happy being around severely injured or sick people every day!

I grew up in south central California, and was never really all that fascinated with Hawaii, or struck with a desire to go there. However, as is often the case, as a result of certain events and circumstances I found myself in Kekaha, Kauai, Hawaii in the June of 1976.

I arrived in the late afternoon, and the drive to the end of the road, Kekaha, where the friend I was visiting lived took nearly an hour in his little Toyota truck. By the time we got to his house, I'd had enough adventuring for that day! I had come to Hawaii with the intent that I would stay for about 3 months, then go back home to California. With that thought in mind, I had determined to go first thing to the post office and sign up for general delivery.

The post office was about a mile from my friend's house, so I set out to walk it first thing in the morning. I had a much unexpected and nearly spiritual experience on that walk! As I traversed the little residential streets of Kekaha town, past huge colorful hedges, open, unfenced yards, big, sprawling mango trees, past the sugar mill to the post office, I actually experienced a very vivid feeling of welcome coming right up from the ground, and from the very vegetation all around me! It was an experience that I will never stop enjoying! It was like coming home for the first time in my life!

And what exactly does this have to do with portraiture? Well, it was very much the same for me when I discovered photography. Except that when I found photography, I was much younger.

For me, art has always been a passion, and people have always been my favorite subjects. Ever since I could hold a crayon or pencil I've been sketching and painting. I've always loved looking at books on art, going to art museums, copying famous paintings, and drawing pictures of statues. To me, people are art. And creating portraits that people of all walks and cultures can appreciate for their sensitivity and artistry is the highest form of art.

When I was introduced to photography by way of a twin lens Yashica camera, I was in Junior High School. At first, my fascination was simply for making photographs to see how they would come out. Very quickly though, I became enchanted by the near magical influences one could obtain by altering perspective and adjusting the camera's controls.

Then I took a class in school and was introduced to the darkroom! What a revelation that was! Talk about influencing and altering the outcome of a photograph! And by no means did it escape my notice that, when you carried a nice big camera around with you, pretty girls were nearly always willing, indeed eager to pose for you! I was completely hooked!

For me the study of art and developing my skills for creating photographic art is a lifetime project. There will never come a time when I will say, "I now know everything there is to know about making beautiful portrait art"! There is and always will be something new to learn or try, and always room for improvement of skills and techniques.

Very simply stated, if you don't love making portraits, and if you don't enjoy learning and improving your craft so that you continue to grow in the art, and in the value you give to your clients, then you are in the wrong profession. If you don't love making portraits, find something else to do, for you are doing a disservice to yourself, your clients and the profession.

As I stated at the outset, for every profession, career, vocation, there are people who are particularly well suited. For portrait photography, the personality traits that contribute to the ideal for this art are:

1) A love for people,

2) A love for the science and technology of photography, and a natural affinity for it,

3) A love for making sensitive, meaningful art, and,

4) A desire to continuously improve.

In my humble opinion, love for the craft and art of photographic portraiture, and a love of people are the most important qualifications for entering the profession.

About the author: Stan P. Cox II runs a Portrait and Commercial photography studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, and has been a professional Hawaii photographer specializing in portraiture for over 30 years. His web address is: http://hawaii-fineart-portrait-photographer.com/ This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Darkroom $19.95 Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White is an arresting and moving personal story about childhood, race, and identity in the American South, rendered in stunning illustrations by the author, Lila Quintero Weaver.   In 1961, when Lila was five, she and her family emigrated from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Marion, Alabama, in the heart of Alabama’s Black Belt. As educated, middle-class Latino immigrants in a region that was defined by segregation, the Quinteros occupied a privileged vantage from which to view the racially charged culture they inhabited. Weaver and her family were firsthand witnesses to key moments in the civil rights movement.  But Darkroom is her personal story as well: chronicling what it was like being a Latina girl in the Jim Crow South, struggling to understand both a foreign country and the horrors of our nation’s race relations. Weaver, who was neither black nor white, observed very early on the inequalities in the American culture, with its blonde and blue-eyed feminine ideal. Throughout her life, Lila has struggled to find her place in this society and fought against the discrimination around her.

The Darkroom Cookbook $39.95 The art of darkroom developing and printing will never go out of style. Master darkroom specialist Steve Anchell is back to prove it in this long-awaited third edition of his enormously successful Darkroom Cookbook. Packed with over 200 "recipes," some common and others rare gems, you'll discover something new every time you open this guide, whether you're new to the darkroom or have been making your own prints for years. In addition to the formulas, you'll find tons of useful information on developers, push-processing, where to get darkroom equipment, how to set up your own darkroom, how to work and play in your darkroom safely, and much more. This handy guide will become a constant companion for every darkroom enthusiast creating prints at home or in the studio. In addition to complete updates throughout to reflect changes in the availability of chemicals and equipment, this third edition contains all new information on: *Reversal processing *Enlarged negatives *Pyro formulas *Plus expanded sections on printing, pyro, and toning prints Also included for the first time are special technique contributions as well as stunning black and white imagery by Bruce Barnbaum, Rod Dresser, Jay Dusard, Patrick Gainer, Richard Garrod, Henry Gilpin, Gordon Hutchings, Sandy King, Les McLean, Sa?d Nuseibeh, France Scully Osterman, Mark Osterman, Tim Rudman, Ryuijie, John Sexton, and John Wimberly. Be sure to visit www.darkroomcookbook.com to find useful links, an interactive user forum, and more! Steve Anchell is a photographer and author of The Variable Contrast Printing Manual, and co-author of The Film Developing Cookbook. He has been teaching darkroom and photography workshops since 1979. Steve is a member of the Freestyle Advisory Board of Photographic Professionals. "With its unrivalled collection of photographic formulae and easy to understand explanations of photographic processes, The Darkroom Cookbook has long been a favorite with darkroom workers everywhere. Now, with further additions to its formulary, more topics, and contributions by renowned darkroom experts, this new edition promises to be an indispensable Aladdin's Cave resource to darkroom enthusiasts of all levels." -Tim Rudman, photographer and author "The Darkroom Cookbook is an essential compendium of photographic information for anyone interested in high-quality darkroom work." -John Sexton, photographer *Packed with rare techniques for silver-based processing clearly explained by a darkroom master so you can create your own stunning prints at home or in the studio *Contains over 200 formulas - follow along step-by-step, or experiment with your own variations to develop new recipes! *Includes a brand-new chapter on analog variable contrast printing *Visit the new supplemental website to find useful links and an interactive user forum

Early Darkroom Equipment $79.99 Early Darkroom Equipment - Premium Photographic Print

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The Photoshop Darkroom $39.95 The Photoshop Darkroom offers limitless possibilities for photographers looking for jaw-dropping results, using powerful and innovative creative post-processing techniques. If you want folks to ask "How did you do that?" then this is the book for you! The images in The Photoshop Darkroom will inspire you and help you unleash your creative potential. You'll learn to view your own digital photography with new eyes. Step-by-step directions show you real-world examples of how to achieve the results you want from your photography and post-processing. *Learn how to work with RAW image files *Understand the Photoshop darkroom workflow *Multi-process RAW files *Extend the dynamic range of your photographs *Create High Dynamic Range (HDR) images by hand *Create stunning black and white imagery with Photoshop *Use layers and masking for compositing *Create striking color effects using LAB color

Darkroom (Paperback) $33.51 In the aftermath of her mother`s suicide, one young woman recognizes the malleability of her reality. From her adolescence in the flat, hot Floridian landscape to a tectonic Missouri adulthood, a girl shaped by grief is compelled to create and manipulate her image of the world. As her dreams become indistinguishable from daily life, she begins to question memory, identity, and the function of love. Employing photography as its central metaphor, Darkroom tackles the tangled relationship between memory and mourning by exploring an artist`s impossible attempt to re-create the object of loss.

Darkroom Widescreen $6.25 Rated: NRSynopsis: He was found 15 years ago wandering a road near the woods, covered in dirt and blood with no name or memory. But when this now-grown mental patient is given an experimental new drug, he suddenly begins to have horrific visions of a beast that slaughters beautiful young women. Escaping from the institution, he is befriended by a teenage outcast who needs the stranger's help to unlock a few frantic secrets of his own. Together, the two will discover the violence of their pasts, the evil in their future, and the shocking secret that waits deep inside The Darkroom.

The New Darkroom Handbook $52.95 The Darkroom Handbook, Second Edition, is a completely revised and updated version of a classic guide to the best design, construction, and equipment to use when setting up a darkroom. This book features ideas and money-saving tips on how to put a darkroom almost anywhere in your home or apartment. It takes you inside darkrooms of photographers around the world including those of famous photographers such as, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Berenice Abbott, and W. Eugene Smith. In addition, it contains detailed do-it-yourself plans for the most essential darkroom components, cutouts and design grids to plan that "dream" darkroom, and special sections on the color darkroom and the digital darkroom. The most comprehensive book on the darkroom. A step-by-step guide to help anyone plan and build a photo lab. Illustrated with an abundance of photos and sketches.

The Darkroom of Damocles $15.43 A modern day masterpiece and the most critically acclaimed Dutch novel of the 20th centuryafinally available in English and shortlisted by Three Percent as one of the best translated books of 2008 During the German occupation of Holland, tobacconist Henri Osewoudt is visited by a man named Dorbeck, who strangely proves to be Osewoudtas spitting image in reverse. Dorbeck assigns Osewoudt to commit a series of dangerous assignments, but things quickly go awry, with Osewouldt eventually killing his own wife. After the war, Osewoudt is taken for a traitor and captured. Osewoudt cannot prove that he received assignments from Dorbeckahe cannot even prove that his doppelganger ever existed. As it forces readers to confront questions of morality and power, right and wrong, "The Darkroom of Damocles" builds to a stunning conclusion.

Darkroom (DVD) $36.49 A married couple that develops crime scene photos for the Salt Lake Police Department gradually finds the psychic toll of their job becoming too much to bear as the disturbing content of the pictures begins to weigh heavily on their morale and cast a suffocating blanket of melancholy over their very existence. Every day, David and Coy are reminded just how badly life can end. When David suffers a devastating disconnect from reality and Coy experiences serious complications while attempting to get pregnant, both of their lives begin spiraling down the same dark and dangerous path.

Darkroom (Hardcover) $128.93 Description not available.

Darkroom Cookbook $35.66 No Synopsis Available